Ấp Đinh An

One of the most popular adventure activities in Da Lat is canyoning so of course we had to try it! We were picked up from our hotel at 8am and taken to get kitted up. Altogether there were 8 people in our group and before heading to the canyon, we had a safety briefing and an introduction to the technique of abseiling. In total we completed 6 main activities; these included a zip line, an 18m abseil, water sliding, a 25m waterfall abseil, cliff jumping and the ‘washing machine’. The highlight was the 25m waterfall abseil down a rock face directly into a flowing waterfall. Approximately 5m from the bottom, we had to take a leap of faith falling into the plunge pool below. The last activity named the 'washing machine' was pretty interesting. Starting as a small abseil until the cliff overhung, we then lowered ourselves into the water flow to drop off the line. The water flow pulled us down into a turbulent pool. “During this time, there will be about 3-4 seconds where the tourists are completely plunged underwater and cannot recognise direction. Physiological preparation and breath holding should be made necessary” was kindly written on a sign at the top.

We both loved it and were pleasantly surprised by the water temperature being warmer than expected. Health and safety precautions were certainly not up to British standards by any means. Having family members with mountaineering experience, we suspect they may have winced at a fair few things we saw throughout the day. One of those being a rope zipline with too much stretch that resulted in a large chap impacting the rock below with his back as he leapt off a rock. You’ll see Jess doing this manoeuvre at the start of one of the video clips, although being lighter Jess avoided the rock. Luckily he wore a life jacket which would have softened some of the impact, however he was in noticeable pain struggling to get up as he landed. We did see him later on and although limping, did seem to be okay. Despite this it was a great excursion, for us at least!

For dinner was a table top BBQ, a very popular dish in Da Lat. We ventured a little further out of the town centre this time, wanting to try some Da Lat specialities but really struggled with the language barrier. It turned out the BBQ we tried to order was finished for the night at one particular restaurant but google translate wasn’t on our side for some reason. We can’t remember the full conversation and wish google translate had saved it, but one of the literal translations from the lady serving us was ‘turn the corner and tickle the cows ass tonight’. Desperately trying not to laugh we both figured we couldn’t get the BBQ and left. After more looking we eventually enjoyed a similar dish elsewhere.Read more